Does It Really Make a Difference Who Raises the Kids?

Estimates of the number of children in the United States alone being raised by same-sex couples run to many millions. In the interests of these children we need to know how happy they are and how they are turning out. The quasi-official word on the subject comes from the American Psychological Association, which reported in 2005: “Not a single study has found children of lesbian or gay parents to be disadvantaged in any significant respect relative to children of heterosexual parents.”

Two studies published recently in Social Science Research have shot that claim to pieces. First, Loren Marks has shown that, of the 59 studies in the APA review, most had collected a small sample of white, well-educated, well-off lesbian parents and asked them how their children were doing. To which the mothers replied, “Great, no problems”, or words to that effect. None of the studies compared these children to kids raised by their biological, married parents.

Second, a well designed study by Mark Regnerus, “How different are the children of parents who have same-sex relationships?” compared such children to those who grew up with their married biological parents. He found that the young adults whose mothers engaged in same-sex relationships were significantly more likely to have received welfare; be currently cohabiting; be currently on public assistance; be currently in therapy; have had outside affairs while in a relationship; have had a sexually transmitted infection; have experienced sexual child abuse; and been forced to have sex.

How did the studies put forward by the APA get it so wrong?

Isn’t it reasonable to assume that those persons with same-sex attraction (SSA) who acquire children desperately want to believe that their decisions have not harmed their children and so they deny the obvious problems, and worse they deny their children’s pain? They love their children and, like all parents, they want the best for them, so how can they admit to themselves — let alone a researcher who hopes to prove that there was no harm — that they have purposefully put their children in a second-best situation.

The children, also, are forced to deny their feelings. They love their parents and depend on them, but they learn very quickly that their natural desire for their missing biological parent is not acceptable. The child is not be able to voice his dissatisfaction with his situation, and at the same time will feel guilty for not being wholly grateful. The combination of parental denial and the child’s guilt will lead the children to conclude that there is something wrong with them.

When talk-show host Rosie O’Donnell, an open lesbian whose coming out was widely publicized a decade ago, was asked what she would do if her adopted son wanted a father, Rosie replied that he had already expressed that desire. When he was six, he’d told her, “I want to have a daddy.” Rosie said she’d replied, “If you were to have a daddy, you wouldn’t have me as a mommy, because I’m the kind of mommy who wants another mommy.” He answered, “OK, I’ll just keep you.”

While Rosie undoubtedly saw this as a positive affirmation of same-sex adoption, there is another interpretation. She sent her son the message that expressing his very natural desire for a father was unacceptable.

In 2004 a cover story in the New York Times Magazine, “Growing Up with Mom and Mom” featured a woman named Ry Russo-Young, who according to the headline was “raised from birth by trailblazing lesbians.” The article showcased Ry, then 22, and her 24-year-old sister, Cade, as glowing poster children for successful same-sex parenting. Ry’s mother explained, “It’s like our whole lives together have been this one big, messy, incredible experiment and it worked.”

And yet even in this idealized, hand-picked example, it was clear that there were many ways in which the “experiment” had failed.

Both Ry and Cade were conceived with sperm from openly gay men. Ry had had a positive relationship with her biological father until he asked for permission to take Ry to see his parents and grandmother in California. When her “mothers” refused, her father filed for paternity rights. He made some headway in the case, but then abruptly dropped his suit when he realized that the litigation had caused him to lose Ry’s affection. When Ry talks about her biological father (now dead from AIDS), “a hint of a wistful tone creeps in” – except when her “mothers” were present, when according to the article’s author she became “almost uncharacteristically tough.”

Both Ry and Cade struggled with their sexuality. Cade came out as a lesbian while Ry was at one point “repulsed” by heterosexual relations, and afraid of the “sexist soul-losing domain of oppression” she believed it to be. Admitting her own heterosexuality meant “growing up and away from my mothers.” Still, sometimes she still feels as though she is “passing” for straight. The article’s author notes that, “For most of her life, Ry has been both parent and child to her mothers.”

Pro-gay researchers Judith Stacey and Timothy Biblarz reviewed the same studies referenced by the APA and found that, contrary to the claims of the gay activists, children of lesbian parents were different; for example, they were more likely to experiment with same-sex relationships than those raised by a father and mother.

Karen Lewis provided therapy for children whose mothers divorced their fathers to live with a woman. Several of the boys were furious at their mother’s lover. Several of the children reacted with a “brief experimentation with homosexuality.” Many of them worried they might be homosexual. In the journal Social Work she wrote:

Several girls thought they might turn to women if they did not have a satisfying relationship with a man. One added, “that’s what my mother did.” She said, in regard to her dating, if she complained to her mother about boys, “She would tell me to try girls.” This response not only sets up the daughter to fulfill her mother’s prophecy; it also denies the girl maternal support in problem solving.

A study entitled, My Daddy’s Name in Donor, by Marquardt, Glenn and Clark, found that children conceived by artificial insemination by donor (AID), including those born to lesbian couples, fare worse than those raised by their biological parents on important outcomes such as depression, delinquency and substance abuse.”

Donor conceived children differ from adopted children, Marquardt and colleagues write, in that they “know that the parents raising them are also the ones who intentionally denied them a relationship with at least one of their biological parents. The pain they might feel was caused not by some distant birth parent who gave them up, but by the parent who cares for them every day.” When asked if they worried that their mother would feel angry or hurt if they tried to get more information about or have a relationship with the sperm donor, 44 per cent children conceived by AID for lesbian couples answered “yes”.

An article by Barbara Eisold, “Recreating Mother”, gives us insight into the problems created by surrogate mothering for men in same-sex relationships. “Nick” was conceived for a male couple, who hired a nanny to care for the boy. When Nick was two, the couple felt that the nanny had become too emotionally involved with the family, and she was fired. They hired another nanny, who was replaced six months later by a third. By the time Nick was four, he was suffering from profound psychological problems. He wanted to “buy” a mother. The therapist engaged to treat him writes:

How do we explain why this child, the son of a male couple, seemed to need to construct a woman – “Mother” – with whom he could play the role of loving boy/man? How did such an idea enter his mind? What inspired his intensity on the subject?

The answer is tragically obvious: little boys need mothers.

These cases provide anecdotal evidence that children are not as able to adapt to “family diversity” as easily as gay activists claim.

Gay activists continue to insist that the problems faced by children raised by same-sex couples are caused by the “homophobic” society in which they live. But why should we assume that even in a totally accepting society, permanently and purposefully fatherless or motherless children will simply “adjust”? It is clear from case histories, even those from pro-gay sources, that the pain felt by children was deeply personal and internal – not caused solely by outside influences. Activists can change the laws, they can modify public opinion over time, but they cannot redesign the hearts of children or restructure their fundamental needs.

The recent Regnerus study demonstrates that being raised by one’s married biological parents gives a child the best opportunity for a positive outcome and that other family structures have been shown “to fall short in significant developmental domains (like education behavior problems,; and emotional well-being) due in no small part to the comparative fragility and instability of such relationships.” (For a case study in instability, see Rosie O’Donnell’s subsequent history.)

Same-sex parenting has intrinsic flaws and deficits that exacerbate the risks intrinsic to adoption, artificial insemination, surrogate parenting, and foster care. Each child acquired by a same-sex couple is either fatherless or motherless because of adult decisions. To place a child into the legal care of a same-sex couple, or for such a couple to acquire a child via AID or surrogacy, unnecessarily endangers that child by forcing him to grow up in what is unarguably a sub-optimal environment.

All the “tolerance of diversity” in the world cannot change the facts on the ground.

Dale O’Leary is a US writer with a special interest in psychosexual issues and is the author of two books: One Man, One Woman and The Gender Agenda. She blogs at What Does The Research really Say?

More on Catholic Exchange

Rosie was teaching her son that her needs/desires were more importnat than his needs/desires. As a child I would feel that I was I was not important to my mother.

James Stagg

Thank you, Dale. Superior article!

From our family’s experience, we have experienced the discontent, homesickness, instability, and downright terror that exists when foster children are deprived of their parents….no matter how “bad” those parents have been, and no matter how much effort and love is devoted to these children by the foster parents. How much those children wish to return to their “home” is amazing.

Why then should (presumably) intelligent adults feel the lack of REAL parents should affect children in these unusual and sometimes bizarre situations?

Seems to me like the APA has a lot to answer for….shoddy research being at the top of the list.

DoughRemy

I’m surprised–or maybe not so surprised–that you cited the highly controversial Regnerus study but that you neglected to mention the following: Two summers ago, the journal Pediatrics (Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics) published a study called “US National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study [NLLFS]: Psychological Adjustment of 17-Year-Old Adolescents.”

Surely you must have known about this.

The study began sometime around 1992 and is still collecting data on the children of lesbian parents. Data is collected from the mothers and, separately and confidentially, from the children. The 2010 write-up was the first in a series.

Here’s what they concluded:

“Contrast analyses found that the 17-year-old NLLFS girls and boys [children of the lesbian parents] were rated significantly higher in social, school/academic, and total competence and significantly lower in social, rule-breaking, aggressive, and externalizing problem behavior than the comparison group.” (The comparison group consisted of age-matched counterparts in Achenbach’s normative sample of American youth.)

There are plenty of male and female role models in the society at large and in the culture that children are exposed to on a constant basis. For the children studied by the NLLFS, the lack of an adult male presence in the household doesn’t seem to have been a problem.

Now, if I were of a mind to disqualify entire classes from parenting children, which I’m not, I might conclude that heterosexuals are less fit than lesbians for the job.
There’s a problem with using empirical data on the results of child-rearing as a factor in deciding who gets to have children. The problem is that you can’t just scrutinize gay and lesbian couples, or straight couples. You would have to scrutinize all groups who want to have children, and then you might find that certain groups–say, Republicans, or people under 20, or Norwegians, or Episcopalians, or bankers–do not make good parents. And then what do you do with Norwegian Democrats and bankers over 20? It’s a sticky wicket, and the only possible reason for going there is to place certain classes of people under political scrutiny.

Connect

Most Popular

CE Shop

This page is having a slideshow that uses Javascript. Your browser either doesn't support Javascript or you have it turned off. To see this page as it is meant to appear please use a Javascript enabled browser.